AnyTux step by step: Linux on NuBus PowerMacs

Stefan Lang, heavily inspired by Clive Menzies

This document describes the Debian GNU/Linux 3.0 ("Woody") installation on a NuBus PowerPC.
The following procedure has been tested on a Power Macintosh 6100/66.
However it should work on almost any NuBus based Power Macintosh computers.

Requirements

A working MacOS has to be installed on the PowerMac.

The machine's hard drive must have enough unpartitioned space to take the installation.
A minimal system without any special software requires about 300 MB, so you should have at least
400 MB for the file system and additional space, depending on your system's RAM size, for swap.

Stage 1: Installing Debian Linux booter

Under MacOS, obtain the
Apple MkLinux Booter
from
nubus-pmac.sourceforge.net
(thanks to Takashi Oe). It comprises three folders, the contents of which
need to be copied to Control Panels (1 file), Extensions (1 file) and
Preferences (2 files) folders - it's pretty self-explanatory.

Download the latest Mach Kernel (version
2.4.27-040811
as of this writing) and the Mach Kernel with Debian Woody installer (version
021029
as of this writing) from
nubus-pmac.sourceforge.net.
Both kernels are gzipped and need to be decompressed to work with the MkLinux booter. If you don't have
a tool to unpack gzipped archives under MacOS, download it to a Linux or Windows machine,
do a gunzip there and copy the resulting uncompressed files to your PowerMac.

Rename from "MachKernel-Debian-woody-021029" to "Mach Kernel" (note the space
character, it's important) and place in the Extensions folder.

Go to Control Panels and open MkLinux window, select Custom which
opens lilo.conf and make sure it reads as follows

It doesn't matter what else is in the file as long as every other line
starts with "#". Save the file and exit.

Restart your machine.
Place a Linux readable CD in the CD-ROM drive otherwise it won't boot
to the installation screen.
When Apple MkLinux Booter comes up, press the "MkLinux" button which should
take you to the Woody installation system.

Stage 2: Installing Woody

Choose the following from the menus

Configure the Keyboard

Partition a Hard Disk
Use fdisk's "c" command to create partitions. All partitions created newly
will then be of type "Apple_UNIX_SVR2", but you should not care about that.
The only important thing is that your designated swap partition has to have the name
"swap" else the installer will not recognize it.

Initialize and Activate a Swap Partition

Initialize a Linux Partition
(more than once if you have multiple partitions).

Install Kernel and Driver Modules
Select Installation medium:
network. The installer should configure your network automatically using
DHCP or BOOTP if you accept the defaults; if not you will have to configure
it manually. The files rescue.bin and drivers.tgz will then be downloaded and
installed.

Install the Base System
Select Installation medium: network. The base packages will then be downloaded
and installed.

Reboot the System into MacOS.

Go to Control Panels and open MkLinux window, select Custom which opens lilo.conf.
Comment out the current rootdev line and add a new one similar to the following:

# RAMDisk Debian Installer
# rootdev=/dev/ram

# boot from root partition on scsi hard drive
rootdev=/dev/sda6

Also uncomment the linux keycodes line as follows:

mach_options= keyboard_sends_linux_keycodes=1

In the new rootdev line, sda6 is the Linux root partion I used; replace it with
the correct number for your machine. Save the file and exit.

Go to your extension folder and replace the "Mach Kernel" with MachKernel-2.4.27-040811
and rename it "Mach Kernel".
Save the previous copy of Mach Kernel in case you need to repeat the installation in the future.

Reboot into "MkLinux" (which is in fact Debian). This takes you to
Debian System Configuration.
Configure your time zone and the password settings to meet your requirements.
After that, go with the defaults until you get to Apt Configuration.
Choose http and select a mirror site. Apt will then install and configure
the Woody packages. Use "tasksel" and/or "dselect" to install packages.
Personally I prefer building up from a minimal installation, so I only add my preferred tools
"vim" and "aptitude" as well as "localeconf" here.
After getting the list of packages required it will
tell you how much is being downloaded and ask if you want to continue;
the default is Y

After the packages download you will be taken to Configuring Debconf.
Generally accept the defaults and chose the locale you require.
You will be asked to choose mail settings - you can reconfigure later.
After installation and configuration of the packages has finished
you will get a screen confirming that
Debian is installed and pressing OK will take you to a login prompt: Debian
GNU/Linux 3.0 debian tty
Login as root.
You can check that everything has installed correctly by typing: apt-get
dist-upgrade (which will offer to install any missing packages)

You now have a base system to which you can add your choice of packages
to tailor Woody to fit your needs using "dselect" or "aptitude".